Thursday, May 23, 2013

OK so a lot of you geeks have asked what I think about “Star
Trek Into Darkness.” Beyond the fact that it has the dumbest movie title since
“The Phantom Menace,” I went into it with an open mind, eager to enjoy it as
much as I
did the 2009 reboot.

Now of course, as I’ve said before, the best part of loving
Star Trek is hating Star Trek. So with no new material from the franchise
(beyond videos games) in four years, we’re all excited to have something to
pore over, dissect, and criticize the crap out of. Because for as much as we
don’t want to be the Comic Book Guy about this stuff … that’s part of the fun.

However, I have to – in all humility – recognize that this
movie was not made for me. The creators know that they’re going to get money
from me no matter what. The goal is not to win me over. The goal is to placate me while appealing to as large a
group as possible.

In that regard, especially with some good box office
performance (though not as good as 2009’s) and an 87% on RT,
the creative team has won over a mass audience. And they definitely placated
me.

Things I liked

Juggling the cast of
characters. OK so here’s the challenge with all Star Trek movies – you have
to juggle all the principles, the villains, and
the movie-specific supporting characters. It’s hard to have an
interesting supporting character who doesn’t distract from some of the mains –
Saavik’s cool and all, but she arguable has a bigger role in TWOK than even
Spock does!

JJ Abrams and his team pulled this off really well in my
opinion, wonderfully dividing up time among the core crew, Adm. Pike, and
everyone else. Notably:

·Robocop:I really like the actor who
plays Robo-cop, who is also not new to the franchise. (He was a good villain in
a bland “space racism is bad” episode of Enterprise.) He makes a great baddy,
and when he calls Kirk “son” it’s with just the right amount of dickishness and self-righteousness.

·Carol Marcus:I think they should have had
her speak with an American accent, but that’s a tiny complaint. She’s a great
actress and fit the role well. I also appreciate that they didn’t jam a love
story between Kirk and her into this. They’ll let that happen in the next one.

·That guy from Dr. Who with the sick
daughter:I don’t
think we ever learn his name or hear him speak, but he gives a terrific
performance that carries a ton of emotional weight. Who says he’s just the Tin
Dog?

·Chris Pike:Boy Bruce Greenwood is a
terrific actor, isn’t he? His and Kirk’s bar scene is so much fun, and gives a
sense of the time that’s passed between the first movie and this one. I wish they
hadn’t killed him, but I understand why they did.

·Old Spock: A cameo of
even just Leonard Nimoy’s head is pure joy. It felt like Star Trek and Futurama
all at once!

Creatively designed
sequences/sets. It must be a challenge for filmmakers to do something that
feels genuinely fresh, especially given how sophisticated the Internet has made
modern audiences. This must be particularly hard for a franchise with 45 years of
history. However, much of Star Trek’s action sequences have been really boring.
So that creates an opportunity for Enterprising creators.

·The space suit chase scene:Pure awesome.
With the helmet displays and the shwooshing through space and the read outs on
the helmets. Sure is a lot cooler than the last time we saw Kirk in a space
suit...

·Future London: Hey there are cities in the future besides San Francisco! Not a lot to say other than
it looked plausibly futuristic and did not remind me of Coruscant from the
prequel trilogy.

·The volcano planet:This opening sequence is a
winner. Feels like pure Trek, with the humor, Kirk and Bones cracking wise, the
incognito mission and the talk of the Prime Directive, Spock’s cool heat suit,
and the Enterprise being underwater. Also they throw just enough Indiana Jones
in there.

·The final Khan/Spock battle:Now it has to be said that
the best thing these guys understand … is that Star Trek is waaaaaay more about
Spock than it is Kirk. That one item gives them a ton of credibility. Making
the climactic battle between Spock (and Uhura!) and the baddy worked great,
although it felt maybe a little bit
too much like Spider-man 2.

·All the Klingon stuff:The question has been all
along “how will they make the Klingons look?” We finally got an answer, and it
was a good one. The forehead ridges, the ships, and even the bat’leths all look
great.

Trek references that
made me grin.

·Section 31:It’s controversial to say,
but the best Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine (at least as far as writing is
concerned). One of DS9’s cleverest innovations was Section 31, the Starfleet
rogue intelligence agency. Having Robocop mention them almost made me jump out
of my seat.

·Ketha Province:In another awesome DS9
reference, all the action on Kronos happens in the Ketha lowlands, home
of DS9’s favorite Klingon: General Martok! (Yes, Martok is more interesting
than Worf. Deal with it.)

·The Mudd incident:It’s implied the ship they took to
Kronos was Harry Mudd’s. Brilliant – it also shows that the crew has been
having adventures in the interim and fills in the gap from the first movie.

So with all the above. I can definitely say that, as a fan,
I am placated.

BUT SERIOUSLY NOW THE COMIC BOOK GUY STUFF.

One
reviewer I like summed the movie up as neither a highlight nor a lowlight,
but just filler. I certainly wouldn’t say the movie wasn’t great, and there was
a lot of stuff I really enjoyed, but when you’re going to so heavily reference
the franchise’s best movie – to the point of recreating scenes shot for shot
and line for line – you run the risk of making the audience say, “Wow! This
movie reminded me how much I liked another movie!”

So.

The whole Khan stuff
does not work. And it doesn’t work for a lot of reasons. Primarily though
is it’s just so unnecessary. You could have told this exact story with one or
two minor tweaks and not mentioned the name Khan at all.

Khan’s role in TWOK had some real significance to the story.
On the one hand we have the micro story of the problems that are going on
inside our protagonist. Turning 50, Kirk is sad that he’s getting old and full of regret about “my life that could have been but wasn’t.”
And in the midst of this, he’s confronted with yet another regret: he should
have executed Khan (or at least put him back to sleep) rather than exiling him to
Ceti Alpha Five. With that bit of stupid optimism, Kirk is indirectly
responsible for all the people Khan kills (including Captain Terrell, much of
Carol Marcus’s team, members of his own crew, and Scotty’s nephew). Kirk’s
self-pity moves really quick into tragedy.

A random guy that Young Kirk has never seen or heard of before does not have any significance to his character.

Then on the other hand in TWOK we have the macro story of the Federation playing Godin developing a hyper-destructive “weapon of mass creation”
(Genesis). This keys into Cold War era fear of nuclear annihilation but not in
a heavy-handed way. They think by playing God they can do great things, but it
blows up in their face. KIND OF LIKE THE EUGENICS WARS – where humanity tried
to play God.Khan and his team have a
significance to the message of the story against the backdrop of real world
current events in 1982.

Khan in “Into Darkness” does not. Also the whole “post 9/11
- the galaxy is a dangerous place!” stuff felt, as one
person put it, “a little too 2005.” The stuff that America is dealing with
now is simply that the world has moved past us – “A
Post-American World” – not the whole balancing security/ethics blah blah
blah.

We’re told that Starfleet wants not just Khan’s intelligence
but his savagery. His line to Spock about “How can you break a bone when you
can’t even break a rule?” is indeed clever, but didn’t need to come from the
mouth of Khan. It could have come from a generic, new villain – or! someone
else from Trek’s lore.

Underscoring how little thought went into “Khan” in “Into
Darkness” is his character design. Every bit of Khan’s look is significant in
TWOK: his lion’s mane of hair (grey from his life of hardship), the tattered
leather he’s left with for clothes, his bare chest to remind us how awesome he is, and the broken Starfleet symbol he wears as
a trophy. We get so much information about this character just by looking at
him!

Cumberbatch’s Khan basically looks like Neo without
sunglasses.

And given how self-righteous the Star Trek franchise has been about racial diversity and making us hear that "Uhura met MLK" story a gazillion times ... turning one of their most famous brown characters white is kind of an insult to that legacy. Now the thing about Khan's origin story, the episode “Space Seed," is it isn’t one of the very
best episodes of the show. SF Debris gave it only an 8/10 – and I don’t think
I’d include it on my personal TOS top 10.

Some of the scenes are so embarrassingly sexist they’re hard
to get through. But because TWOK is so good, we retroactively like it more. So
if Nick Meyer and Harve Bennett could do that with “Space Seed,” why couldn’t
Abrams and his team do it with another episode?

Garth is not one of the most famous villains from Star Trek.
He’s from the TOS episode “Whom Gods Destroy,” which is most notable in Trek
lore because the actress who played Batgirl appears as an Orion female.

Now I don’t want to undermine the significance of that, but
let’s look at Garth’s character description and see if maybe it would have fit better with this "Into Darkness" story:

Hey you need someone savage to help you make new weapons? Maybe a
decorated Starfleet captain would be a little better than some random dude from
the 20th Century.You want someone to highlight Young Kirk’s
inexperience and the fact that he desperately needs a father figure? Maybe a
decorated Starfleet captain whose tactics were “required reading at the
Academy.”Want to show that you have a deep vocabulary of the
show—especially when you already referenced TWOK so heavily in the 2009 movie?
Maybe an obscure, but interesting, villain like Garth would do the trick.

(Incidentally they referenced TWOK heavily in "Nemesis" too - so that's now three movies in a row, or 25% of the franchise, that's all trying to mimick the same one film.)

Moreover, by making Garth of Izar a cool, new villain, you
inject a lot more significance into “Whom Gods Destroy” than the episode ever
had – just like TWOK did with “Space Seed.” You create the same effect, without just being a copy-cat. Also wouldn’t it be more clever, instead of Spock shouting “KHAAAAN!!!”to have Young Kirk shout
“GAAAAAARTH!!!”

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Two-part sitcoms are usually failures, because
“brevity is the soul of wit.” Stretching out gags often makes them less funny
rather than more funny. (The closest “Seinfeld” came to a good two-parter was
“The Pilot” where a huge chunk of the hour was the eponymous, metafictional
show-within-the-show.)

“Fun Run” demonstrates how you do it though: by
giving the two parts different (albeit related) storylines. The first half is
about Michael dealing with the blowback from hitting Meredith (declaring the
office “cursed”) and the second half is about the Michael Scott's Dunder
Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-am Fun
Run Race For The Cure. Woven through this episode is the fallout from the
season 3 cliffhanger (Pam and Jim getting together, Ryan going to NYC, Jan
moving in with Michael).

Every line in this episode is golden.

Highlight:

Ryan: Did this happen on company property?

Michael Scott: It was on company property, with
company property. So, double jeopardy, we're fine.

Ryan: I don't think-- I don't think you understand
how jeopardy works.

Oh what joy! What splendor as Michael struggles to
feel as cool as the warehouse people even though he doesn’t have access to the
bailer. We reinforce Dwight’s bizarre Amish-ness with his shunning Andy,
Kevin’s gambling problem, and the fact that Jim and Pam pull together in a
crunch (when Michael is about to kill himself pretending to kill himself). The
Netflix competition has got to be the best product placement ever.

Also this has my favorite line from The Office,
where Daryl tells Michael: “You Braveheart, man.”

Highlight:

Dwight Schrute: Michael, what's wrong?

Michael Scott: Everything is wrong, Dwight. The
stress of my modern office has made me depressed.

Dwight Schrute: Depressed? Isn't that just a fancy
word for feeling, 'bummed down?'

The main story of season 7 is Michael finally
growing up and overcoming some of his issues. This is the one where Michael
overcomes his man-crush on Ryan, set against the back-drop of “The Social
Network”-esque start-up “WUPHF.com” Also kudos for finally ending the
Dwight/Angela affair thing.

After this episode came out, we referred to any
blast-communication as a “WUPHF” at my job. (“It's not a digital rape whistle!
WUPHF is about fun!”)

Highlight:

Michael:
The world sends people your way... Ryan came to me through a temp agency. Andy
was transferred here. No idea where Creed came from. The point is you just have
to play with the cards that you're dealt. Jim, that guy is an ace. Dwight is my
King up my sleeve. Phyllis is my old maid. Oscar is my queen. That's easy.
Gimme a hard one. That's what Oscar said. Toby is the instruction card you
throw away. Pam's a solid seven. And yeah, you know what? Ryan is probably,
like, a two. But sometimes twos can be wild. So watch out. And I am obviously
the joker

Saturday, May 11, 2013

When it’s at its best, The Office does drama better
than dramas do: this episode is the belle of the ball. With Steve Carrell’s
tender send-off, we see the supporting characters have gone from hating Michael
to loving him in a way that’s both hilarious and inspiring – hilspiring. The
scene where Michael and Jim start to lose it will put a lump in your throat
unless you’ve got a heart of stone. (Or maybe a throat of stone.)

Highlight:

Michael: Well, I guess this is it. Hey will you guys
let me know if this ever airs?

This I believe is the episode (along with “The
Merger” right before it) that marks the turning point from where the show was
just an imitation of the UK version to its own creature, with the merging of
the Scranton and Stamford branches. Wonderful display of Michael’s desire (albeit
inability) to be politically correct. This also features what might be my very
favorite Office scene ever (in fact it was my 2012 Halloween costume): Prison
Mike.

Now a regional manager herself, Karen tries to poach
Stanley. Michael and Dwight (and an unwitting Jim) lead a raid to teach Karen a
lesson. Meanwhile, back at the office, we are introduced to the Finer Things
Club.

My favorite part of this episode is where Jim sees
Karen coming and hides in the car. The camera man keeps filming her; Jim pulls
the camera man down and gives him a “What are you doing?” look. Excellent
reminder that the camera crew is actually
there. (Oh and when Dwight pees into a can.)

Highlights:

Andy: The Finer Things Club is the most exclusive
club in this office. Naturally it's where I need to be. The party planning
committee is my backup. And Kevin's band is my safety.

The best thing about The Office is also the worst
thing about The Office: Michael Scott going nuts. In some episodes he goes so
overboard, that it breaks plausibility (that he hasn’t for example been fired
or beaten up by one of the warehouse workers).

This one does that best methinks, with Michael
trying to become (essentially) a reality show star in the wilderness, Dwight
enabling him, and Jim proving completely incapable of getting birthdays right.

I love Michael’s showing up at the end in an
oversized Battlestar Galactica sweatshirt (obviously Dwight’s). I love even
more that they never draw explicit attention to it … like “30 Rock” did a year
later.

Highlight:

Michael
Scott:Just wait. 10 years, you'll figure
it out.

Jim
Halpert:Well, I don't think I'll be
here in 10 years, but...

Michael
Scott:That's what I said. [pause] That's
what she said.

Jim
Halpert:That's what who said?

Michael
Scott:I never know. I just say it. I say
stuff like that, you know, to lighten the tension, when things sort of get
hard--

Friday, May 10, 2013

Season openers tend to be strong on The Office –
this one set the standard. Michael accidentally outs Oscar. Hilarity ensues,
notably Michael’s effort to act politically correct when he isn’t in his heart.
We see more of Andy’s anger issues.

So a frequent criticism of the American version of
The Office is that it owes too much to the British version. I agree with this
criticism. The stuff that the US version cribbed from the UK version sucked
because the UK version isn’t really that funny. Case in point: Jan. The whole
dynamic with Michael and Jan was only OK, but they did it because they had to
from the UK version. But it works in this episode as we see Michael oddly
trying to compete with her by forming a “men in the workplace” breakout session
to counter Jan’s with the female staff.

Pam loses it when she realizes she isn’t strong
enough to chase her dreams, even when the company she ostensibly hates offers
to help her achieve them. (Remember: Pam is a loser, but Jenna Fisher is an
INCREDIBLE dramatic actress.)

This is also the breakthrough episode for the
warehouse (notably Daryl).

This episode is a classic. Michael and Daryl
negotiate for raises, with Michael hilariously cribbing negotiation tactics
from Wikipedia. Dwight saves Jim’s life with pepper-spray when Roy attacks him,
but refuses to accept any gratitude from Jim. Great how Angela coaxes everyone
to tell her the story of Dwight’s bravery.

Highlight:

Creed: I remember it was very late at night, like
eleven, eleven-thirty. Big fella comes in, screaming about God knows what. I
think maybe Halpert had stolen his car, something like that. So the big fella
pulls out a sock filled with nickels, then Schrute, grabs a can of hairspray
and a lighter-

In honor of the final episode of The Office, I have
put together my top 10 list of all The Office episodes. I hope you enjoy it. As
there are 200 total episodes in the show’s run, this means that just 5% of
episodes made this list. Not all seasons are represented. Obviously there is a
“bell curve” to the quality of the show (peaking in season 3, waning in 5,
spiking finally again in season 7), so seasons on this list are represented
thusly:

Season

Episodes

2

1

3

4

4

3

7

2

My parameters for quality are

a)Quality
of humor derived from every-day work-life

b)Quotability

c)Use
of my favorite Office tropes, which are

1Michael Scott is more capable than
people think he is, but less capable at the things he thinks he’s good at

2Jim Halpert is not as cool as he thinks
he is

3Pam is actually kind of a loser

Before we get into the list, let’s start with an honorable
mention: Prince Family Paper

While this episode’s main story, Michael and Dwight
trying to sabotage a rival company, is good, the true genius is the episodes B
story: the rest of the staff debating if Hillary Swank is “hot” or merely
“attractive.” Not the best episode, but certainly the best B story.